Back To Luther... and the old (German) Missouri Synod. Below are thoughts, confessions, quotations from a Missouri Synod Lutheran (born 1952) who came back to his old faith... and found more treasures than he knew existed in the training of his youth.
The great Lutheran lineage above: Martin Luther, C.F.W. Walther, Franz Pieper.

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Thursday, October 23, 2014

Baier-Walther, Compendium Theologiae Positivae-v.1 digital text

(updated Nov. 24 to add Vol. I Table of Contents)NOTE: 2016-07-08 Updated to add links direct to the Google Docs files. See list at bottom.2017-07-13: added link to Archive copy of Index "Volume IV"
I have previously written about this work on several occasions. It is a different kind of publication from the old (German) Missouri Synod for it is primarily in Latin, typeset in a Roman font, not the Fraktur font. But it also has German, Greek, and Hebrew wording as well. These are the languages of theology through the ages. The English language is only important in the last century, and even then as secondary to the others. O, if only I could be a scholar in these languages and not be so tied to the English language!

There are 132 references to this work in Franz Pieper's 3-volume Christian Dogmatics (C.D.) textbooks:

C.D. Vol. 1: 68 references

C.D. Vol. 2: 40 references

C.D. Vol. 3: 24 references

Clearly, Pieper did not hide the fact that his textbooks used Walther's work as one of his major foundations. And its contents will be largely understood by following Pieper's references to it.

The Baier-Walther Compendium has been made available again in print in recent years as reproductions of the originals (essentially scanned images) by Emmanuel Press here. But these do not include the digitized text. Since this work is considered "Walther's textbook", the one he used during his days of teaching, I consider it to have great value, and I am presenting the digital text, in the original languages. In previous years this would have no value for laymen because its languages were incomprehensible. But with today's Internet tools, digitization and Google Translate (even for Latin), it is within our grasp so that the general meaning of the text can be readily determined by copying relevant texts into Google Translate for Latin or German.

I am beginning now with Volume 1. This text is the output of OCR software from scans of the original books (not from Emmanuel Press) with some corrections of OCR errors in the Latin and German portions. Although it will be readily seen that this is far from perfect, yet there are far less errors of text than in the Google Books "plain text" OCR copy. No attempt was made to correct the Greek and Hebrew words because of my lack of familiarity with them. To get the exact Greek and Hebrew texts, the user will need to either download the book scan from Google Books or purchase the reproductions from Emmanuel Press which are reasonably priced.
- - - - - - - - Table of Contents, Vol. I - - - - - - - - CONSPECTUS VOLUMINIS PRIMI.

There are earlier editions of Baier's work (e.g. Preuss edition), but they do not compare to this edition by Walther, for it is Walther's added quotes that gives this work its real value. Just as Luther had to judge the Church Fathers where they erred, so Walther had to judge where Baier or other "orthodox Lutheran theologians" went astray and make corrections in their erroneous statements. As Emmanuel Press says, the Index Volume IV gives “several of Baier’s phrases, opinions, and modes of teaching, of which Dr. Walther did not approve.” And the one review on Amazon by "John D. Kronen" utterly misses the mark as this work was not for "scholars" but rather for Christian teaching, including the "disastrous doctrines of the verbal inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture".
You will find many points of interest in this text when explored. For example Walther quotes the Koran on pages 130-131.
= = = = = = = = Table of Contents = = = = = = = = =NOTE: 2016-07-08 Updated to add links direct to the above Google Docs files. — [HathiTrust list]Volume I (Prolegomena; updated Nov. 21) (published Google Docs here) [Ggl Books hereand here]Volume II (posted Nov. 20) (published Google Docs here) [Ggl Books here]; HathiTrust here]Volume IIIa (posted Nov. 23) (published Google Docs here) [Ggl Books here]Volume IIIb (posted Nov. 24) (published Google Docs here)Index ("Volume IV") (published Google Docs here) [Archive- book copyhere]

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About Me

I was born into the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church in 1952. After largely throwing off my Christian faith in my youth, the Lord showed me back by his Word. He also showed me the wealth of true teaching in the old (German) Missouri Synod. Hence the above pseudo-name I have chosen.
You may contact me via email postmaster @ franzpieper.com